You’ll notice it’s been exactly one month since my last post
in this series. It’s not that I’ve been procrastinating-this really is the next
step-WAITING.
Due to some construction delays (we’re building a house in
Washington in the middle of winter), our close date was pushed back from
December 27th to January 6th. While it stinks that my
parents weren’t able to stay in the house when they were here for Christmas, it
was completely understandable and the hubs and I were fully prepared to
experience some construction delays.
What we were not prepared for however, was for our lender to
jerk us around. We are doing a VA loan with Chase. Living within miles from a
military base, you would think they were fully equipped to handle VA loans.
That was not the case.
The morning my parents were flying out to head home, the
hubs gets a call from the loan officer. Knowing my personality, he waits to
tell me about this phone call until after we drop my parents off at the
airport. (Smart man). He then tells me Chase is pushing our closing back until
January 21st. For you math-haters our there (that includes me), that
is over TWO WEEKS from our original closing date.
Why did they push it back you ask? No, not because we were
not getting back information to them that they requested-we fulfilled all
requests within 24 hours. No, the delay is due to the fact that the VA
supposedly has X number of days to review documents then X number of days to
respond. Ok, that makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is why Chase did not
relay this information to us before. Instead they gave us the best-case
scenario (the VA reviewing documents and responding immediately) and presented
it as the ONLY scenario.
Needless to say, I was livid. We received this phone call
FOUR days before we were set to close. We had submitted requests to take time
off work. We had ordered a washer and dryer set to be delivered that weekend.
We had hired movers.
Our agent was awesome throughout this process-he went to bat
for us. Finally our loan officer called to say Chase was “expediting” the loan
so we could close on the 15th. Still not the 6th, but
whatever. I was kind of over it at that point. The hubs and I were both thiiiis
close to just walking away-the only reason we didn’t is that we’d lose the $2k
in earnest money we put down.
Fast forward two weeks to January 13th-two days
before we were now expecting to close. The loan has been sent to underwriting,
where it has been for a couple of weeks, and the underwriter had advised she
will contact on this date to give a status report. As of 5:00 we had not heard
anything so I shot the underwriter a quick email to check in. She replies
shortly after advising our closing date will likely be January 24th.
Um, say WHAT?
This is when I go on a rampage. When Chase originally pushed
back our closing date, I had that hot anger-you know when you’re seeing red and
you just feel like yelling at everybody? Well now this had iced over. And that
is way more dangerous.
I send off a series of emails to the underwriter, her boss,
our agent expressing my…displeasure. Don’t worry, these emails were heavily
edited and quite civil-I don’t want to jeopardize anything. I put Chase on
twitter blast, hoping something would reach their Customer Service. This is
when I actually consider and would agree to walk away from the house should the
hubs suggest it.
Our agent calls me right away-probably expecting to have to
calm me down and surprised at how calm I am. I relay everything to him. At this
point, while we would lose our money-I do not trust Chase to handle the
hundreds of thousands of dollars (including interest) they will be receiving
from us over the next 30 years. He tells me he will follow up with everyone and
to hang tight for a day.
The next day I hear back from the underwriter telling us she
will do everything in her power to get our loan out of underwriting ASAP. It is
then I discover while our loan officer is the one giving us all the information
about our closing date-it is really not in her power to promise such things.
Our underwriter tells us to call her and verify any information we receive in
the future about closing. And I am incredibly grateful to her- as someone who
works in Claims, I have to clean up other people’s messes everyday. And it
sounds like that is what she is having to do here.
Within two days of this conversation, she has our loan done
with underwriting. Here is what remains of the process:
1. Underwriting
forwards the loan information to the Audit/Qualify Assurance Department to check
everything over and make sure it is in top shape to be sent to the VA. This
normally takes 24 hours.
2. The
VA checks the loan over. Once they’re satisfied, they send it back to the
lender to complete.
3. The
closing team at Chase rechecks the loan and finalizes all the numbers. They then send it to the funding
department. Steps 2 & 3 should take about 48 hours.
4. Chase
sends the loan to Escrow and we can FINALLY sign and receive keys. After much
trial and tribulation, the house will be ours.
The only step I am hesitant about is the VA-I don’t want
this to turn into what previously happened and have them hang onto everything
for two weeks. So you better believe I have researched the process and found
the contact information for the department handling our region.
So now we’re still waiting…but the end is in sight.
